Truckin’ on: A Philly Ukrainian American is working to deliver wheels to front-line troops

So here’s the plan:

Raise $8,000 to buy the truck, a big, used 2000 Ford F250 diesel, and ship it 4,300 miles across the world from South Jersey to Europe.

From there — maybe Poland or Germany — contacts at the nonprofit Amicus Ukraine will get the truck to Ukraine, then deliver it to Ukrainian military units. They’ll outfit the vehicle and drive it into the front lines, using its strength to haul equipment, evacuate the wounded, and fight the Russians.

Simple, right?

OK, admits Roman Strakovsky, a Mount Airy data analyst and cofounder of Philly Stands With Ukraine, maybe the whole thing sounds a little far-fetched.

To send an old vehicle that far. To pay to ship 5,600 pounds of truck overseas — not exactly like mailing a box of socks.

But, he said, Ukrainian forces desperately need trucks. And the scarcities and demands of war actually make it more logical and economical to buy here and send there, rather than try to find the right truck among expensive, picked-over stock in Europe.

“My wife thinks I’m a little bit crazy,” said Strakovsky, who volunteers for Kyiv-based Amicus Ukraine.

Friends have gently suggested the same, but “once you get into the specifics, and explain why it’s necessary, and the logistics, they get it.”

This particular Ford, a white, four-wheel drive super-duty crew cab Lariat, waits at Brothers Auto Center, a used-car dealership in Clayton, located just south of Glassboro in Gloucester County.

So far the online fundraising effort has brought in about $1,700 of the $8,000 cost. That breaks down to roughly $6,500 for the truck and another $1,500 or so to ship it.

It marks another big effort by a Philadelphia-area Ukrainian American community that has stepped forward to help compatriots at home. Local Ukrainian American churches, charities, and organizations have sent millions of dollars worth of goods and supplies.

At one point the sisters of St. Basil in Jenkintown had boxes stacked high overhead, filled with sleeping bags, medicines, clothing, walkers, wheelchairs, ramen noodles, granola bars, and more.

The Philadelphia region is home to one of the nation’s largest Ukrainian American communities, some 70,000 people who are immigrants or hold ancestry.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States and other Western allies have delivered billions of dollars in weapons. Ukraine has defended itself, not only with its military, but with everything it can find.

That’s included turning passenger trucks and SUVs into war vehicles, mounted with gunnery systems.

Amicus Ukraine has imported nearly 100 trucks, SUVs, buses, station wagons, and ambulances, which are used to move everything from humanitarian supplies to people to ammunition.

Director Vitalii Naumenko said in a phone call from Kyiv that trucks are the vehicles most in demand, needed for their pulling power and durability on roads that are often damaged.

Ukrainian fighting units always ask for more trucks, he said.

Naumenko is a former high-ranking Ukraine customs official who has used his contacts in the Baltic region to import vehicles, often ones that have been confiscated by authorities in Lithuania.

That country, the first to declare full independence from the Soviet Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall, has been sympathetic to Ukraine as it navigates its own tense relationship with Moscow.

Unfortunately, Naumenko said, trucks have become hard to find in Europe. And when located they tend to be priced excessively.

Strakovsky said that’s where he comes in, living in America, the land of the pickup. After hearing about the need for trucks, he started looking at advertisements and evaluating possibilities.

This Ford is a 2000 model, with just under 300,000 miles on the odometer.

A new one can easily cost more than $50,000. But there’s little point spending that amount of money.

Naumenko said trucks-turned-combat-vehicles have short life spans, because they immediately become targets of Russian forces.

“They’ll shoot at anything that moves,” he said.

Beside the military use, Naumenko said, the delivery of trucks holds important meaning for Ukrainian troops.

“They know they’re not alone in this,” he said. “That people aren’t standing aside, but stepping up and helping, especially in the U.S.”

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